THE AETHERBORN

The Convergence Room was empty save for Thorne and Elias. The massive wooden sigil wheel at the center turned in its slow, endless rotation, the inlaid runes catching threads of aether and spinning them into neat, spiraling lines of light.

Elias lingered near the door, glancing from the wheel to Thorne's face. The glow hadn't fully left him. His skin looked pale, almost translucent, the veins beneath still faintly illuminated.

"You shouldn't be alone," Elias said finally. "I'm coming with you."

Thorne chuckled, quiet, rasping, the sound more tired than amused. "I doubt the academy's security will agree."

He nodded toward the archway that led into the Umbral Wing. A tall statue stood before it, a cowled figure carved from obsidian, holding a stone candle in one hand and a book in the other. The candle's flame burned violet, steady and cold.

"He won't let you in," Thorne said. "Trust me, I've seen what happens when someone from another House tries. It's… unpleasant."

Elias squared his shoulders, chin lifting. "We'll see about that."

Before Thorne could protest, Elias marched toward the statue, his boots clicking sharply on the sigil-etched floor. He stopped before the guardian, cleared his throat, and announced, "I demand entrance. I will accompany my friend to his room. He needs help."

For a breath, nothing happened.

Then the candle's violet flame flared, twisting higher, burning like a silent warning. Elias hesitated, but only for a heartbeat. He took a single step forward.

The flame blazed brighter, pulsing once, then steadied. It didn't strike.

Elias turned back to Thorne, his grin somewhere between pride and disbelief. "See? Guess he agrees."

Thorne blinked, genuinely surprised, then shrugged. "Good enough for me."

They descended together, leaving the wheel and its glimmering aether threads spinning behind them.

The stairwell wound down into the bowels of the castle, walls lined with dark stone veined by soft, pulsing runes. Cool air whispered through the corridor.

When they reached the Umbra Common Room, Elias stopped to stare.

The chamber stretched wide and open, the walls lined with ancient books and crystalline globes. Through the tall arched windows spread the enchanted galaxy, a living mural of drifting constellations, nebulae, and shifting stars that painted the room in soft violet light.

The place was utterly deserted at this late hour.

Elias gave a low whistle. "Fancy. And perfectly villainous. I can already picture Lucien and Isadora scheming their way into the next party down here."

Thorne huffed a faint laugh. "You're not far off."

He led them toward the back, where a narrow alcove curved upward into a side hallway lined with personal quarters. The door to Thorne's room creaked faintly as he opened it.

Elias stepped in and looked around, brow rising. "I expected something… fancier. You know. Velvet curtains. A faint ominous hum. At least one skull candle."

Thorne glanced around the cramped space, the small desk littered with parchment and potion vials, the single bed tucked under a low window, the cracked mirror on the wall. "This suits me better," he said simply. "Looks like the room I had when I was little."

Elias turned, curiosity flickering in his eyes. "You had a room like this? Before Aetherhold?"

Thorne didn't answer immediately. He only smiled, one of those small, tired smiles that didn't reach his eyes. "Something like that."

He peeled off his scorched coat, the torn fabric stiff with dried blood, and changed into a loose shirt and dark trousers. The motion made him wince, but he ignored it. Elias, giving him space, wandered to the window.

The enchanted galaxy outside shimmered, the slow drift of its stars mirrored faintly in his eyes. "How do you even sleep with that outside your window?" he murmured. "It's like living inside a dream."

Thorne dropped heavily onto the bed, groaning as his body sank into the mattress. "Most nights," he said, "I don't."

Elias turned, lips parting as if to ask more, but stopped when he saw Thorne's expression, eyes half-shut, shoulders slumped, exhaustion finally dragging him under.

The room fell quiet, lit only by the galaxy's faint glow seeping through the window.

For the first time in a long time, Thorne allowed himself to lie still, eyes half-open to the drifting constellations outside. His body ached, his veins still faintly luminescent beneath the skin, but at least, finally, he was still.

He exhaled softly, not quite sleep yet, but close enough to pretend.

Thorne's eyelids had begun to sink when Elias's voice finally cut through the quiet.

"Are we going to talk about it?"

Thorne groaned into his pillow. "I'm tired, Elias."

"I know," the elf said quickly, "but I can't just wait until you wake up. Patience isn't one of my virtues."

Thorne cracked one eye open just in time to see Elias grin and jump onto the bed. The mattress dipped under his weight, jostling Thorne halfway off the pillow.

"Sorry, sorry," Elias said, utterly unapologetic, mischief flashing in his eyes.

Thorne groaned again and pushed himself upright, leaning back against the headboard. "Alright. What do you want to know?"

Elias bounced once on the mattress, excitement bubbling through the exhaustion in his face. "Really? You're asking me that? Everything, obviously! What are you? What was that? What's going on?"

Thorne sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "I'm… an…" He hesitated. The words sat heavy on his tongue. He hadn't said them aloud to anyone but Marian. "…an Elderborn."

Elias blinked. Then frowned. Then, as understanding dawned, his eyes lit up. "Oh! I think my grandmother used to tell stories about your kind, fairy tales, you know? About a man who could shape clouds and breathe life into stone."

Thorne gave a dry, humorless sound that might've been a laugh. "Yeah. Something like that."

Elias's grin faltered at the tone. "That bad?"

Thorne looked down at his hands, at the faint glow still pulsing beneath his skin. "Worse. The truth is a lot less magical. Elderborn aren't legends anymore, Elias. We're targets." He met the elf's gaze, his voice low and steady. "We're hunted. Killed for our cores. When they do catch one alive, they bring them to places like Aetherhold. They don't train us, they study us."

Elias stared at him, the meaning sinking in. "You mean..."

"That's why no one can know what you saw," Thorne said, cutting him off. "Not the professors, not your friends, not anyone. If the academy finds out what I am, they'll capture me. Kill me. Cut me open to see how I work."

For a long heartbeat, Elias said nothing. Then his expression hardened, the easy grin gone. "I would never do that," he said quietly. "Your secret's safe with me. I swear it."

Thorne rubbed his forehead, suddenly too tired for gratitude. "Did you have to follow me into the forest?"

Elias chuckled, brushing his hair back from his face. "Of course I did. You kept sneaking off at night, always coming back looking like you'd gone ten rounds with a bear. I had to know what you were doing."

Thorne laughed, tired, genuine, a small sound that eased the tension in the room. "You don't know half of it."

Elias frowned. "What do you mean by that?"

Thorne didn't answer. He wasn't about to tell Elias about Evermist, or the underworld, or the dwarf and halfling who now called him partner. Instead, he shifted the conversation, voice turning dry. "I meant the forest. You saw enough there to fill a few lifetimes. What was it like for you?"

Elias leaned back against the foot of the bed, eyes distant. "Like standing in the middle of a storm made of light. Everything was alive. The trees, the air, even the ground felt like it was breathing. And you..." he glanced up at Thorne, something like awe in his voice "... you were part of it. It was terrifying. And beautiful."

Thorne smiled faintly, his head falling back against the wall. "Terrifying and beautiful," he repeated. "That's about right."

Elias tilted his head, studying him. "So, what happens now?"

Thorne's eyes drifted shut, exhaustion pulling at him again. "Now," he murmured, "I try not to explode. And you try not to tell anyone I might."

Elias huffed a soft laugh. "Deal."

For a few quiet seconds, there was only the low hum of the enchanted galaxy beyond the window. Then, softly, "What was it like for you?"

Thorne cracked one eye open. "What was what like?"

"All of it," Elias said, his voice careful. "What can you really do? What does it feel like, being… that?"

Thorne groaned, rubbing at his temple. "You're worse than Marian."

"I'm curious," Elias said, flashing a grin that didn't quite hide the nervousness behind it. "It's not every day I watch my friend fight something that could flatten a mountain."

Thorne sighed, then nodded, conceding. "It's like standing in the middle of a storm, but the storm listens. Every breath, every thought, it responds. The power isn't something I use. It's… something I am. Sometimes it's beautiful." He paused, eyes unfocused. "Sometimes it's unbearable."

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Elias nodded slowly, clearly out of his depth but trying to understand. "You make it sound lonely."

Thorne didn't answer. Instead, Elias's next question came quieter. "And before all this? Before Aetherhold?"

That one made him hesitate. For a moment, Thorne thought about brushing it off, turning it into a joke, something evasive and clever, but for some reason, maybe exhaustion, maybe the way Elias's voice carried genuine curiosity instead of judgment, he didn't.

He exhaled and began to speak.

He told Elias about his parents, his mother, radiant and strange, hiding what she was; his father, a good man who'd paid for love with his life. He spoke of his sister, laughing and small, taken by men who'd come under royal banners and left their home in ashes.

Then came Alvar, the city of smoke and shadows where he'd nearly died a hundred times, the spiderweb of alleys and dangers that had tangled around a nine-year-old boy until "Uncle" found him.

Elias listened, silent now, his earlier energy fading into stillness.

Thorne spoke of Uncle's guild, of the orphans who became blades, of the Lost Ones, those who didn't return from training, whose names were whispered like prayers among the survivors. He told him about Jonah, Ben, Eliza, Darius, the friends who'd become his first family, and how he didn't know whether they were alive or dead ever since the destruction of Alvar.

By the time he reached the part about coming to Aetherhold, his voice had grown quieter, words slower, but the dam had broken. The stories spilled out one after another, stripped of their usual detachment.

When he finally stopped, the room was silent again.

Elias's face was different now. The easy brightness was gone, replaced by something heavier, understanding, sympathy, a sadness that had no words.

"I didn't know," he said softly. "I thought… you were just good at keeping secrets."

Thorne managed a faint smile. "I've had practice."

Elias leaned back against the wall, staring up at the slow-turning stars beyond the glass. "And after all that, you still came here to study."

"Study, hide, survive, seek the truth," Thorne said. "Call it what you like."

Elias looked over at him, eyes sharp and clear in the dim light. "You're not just surviving anymore, Thorne. Whatever happened in that forest, whatever you've become..." He shook his head, at a loss for words. "You're something else now. And I think the world's going to notice."

Thorne gave a small, tired laugh, the sound brittle around the edges. "Let's hope it doesn't. At least for now"

The galaxy outside shifted, a swirl of color rippling across the dark stone floor. Thorne's gaze followed it absently as the last of his strength slipped away.

For the first time in years, he had told someone everything. No lies, no half-truths, no convenient silences. And for the first time in a long time, he felt a strange, fragile relief.

As his eyes closed, Elias was still watching him, silent and thoughtful.

When Thorne finally drifted into sleep, Elias whispered the words more to himself than to anyone else.

"You've survived worse," he said. "You'll survive this too."

***

The next morning came far too soon.

Thorne dragged himself through the halls of Aetherhold with the kind of exhaustion that lived in the bones, not the body. His core felt overworked, his aether sluggish and uncooperative. Every spell glyph etched in the corridors pulsed too bright against his eyes, every ward hum too loud in his skull.

Elias, of course, hovered beside him the entire time.

Even when Professor Relan politely, well, as politely as Relan ever managed, asked Elias to leave the room, the elf refused. "I can't practice," he announced to the class. "My staff broke. I'll just watch."

Thorne smirked faintly despite the headache that refused to leave him. Relan pinched the bridge of his nose but said nothing. Elias stayed.

Most students seemed blissfully unaware of what had happened the night before. Aetherhold had seen its share of strange magical disturbances, malfunctioning constructs, experimental alchemy gone wrong, but this one had rattled more than a few glass towers. The students whispered about it in passing, assuming it had something to do with a forest ritual gone bad or a creature migration.

But Thorne noticed the difference in the staff.

Professors, researchers, and enforcers clustered in tight groups between classes, their voices hushed, their brows drawn. Even the resident artificers seemed shaken, muttering to one another about resonance spikes and broken ley readings. Whatever explanations they conjured up, none came close to the truth.

Thankfully, the Caledris students were too preoccupied to care.

With the delegation from Caledris still in Evermist, half of them had gone down to the city to visit relatives or listen for news. The others spent their hours pacing, arguing in small groups about the inevitable war, their nerves frayed and tempers short.

The distraction suited Thorne fine.

Only Nyssha noticed.

You are off, the darkling said flatly during Alchemy, her eyes scanning him like a dissecting lens. Your pallor has shifted two degrees lighter since last week. Your aether flow is erratic. Your breathing pattern indicates fatigue. You've also lost weight...

"I get it," Thorne muttered.

And your heart rate just spiked, she added, as if reading a chart. You are hiding something.

Before Thorne could come up with an excuse, Elias leaned forward with all the easy charm in the world. "He's hiding a terrible crush, Nyssha. You're too perceptive. You'll ruin his chances."

Nyssha blinked once. Unlikely.

Thorne's lips twitched, but Elias was already steering the conversation elsewhere, something about the rumored duel between House Solaris and the Kalleen delegation. It was nonsense, but it was enough. They slipped out before Nyssha could reengage.

By the time afternoon bled into evening, Thorne's energy was gone. He returned to his room, collapsed onto his bed, and let the world shrink to silence.

He dropped onto the edge of his bed and summoned the faint, translucent System window that shimmered into being before him.

The familiar blue-white text scrolled lazily upward, the numbers rearranging themselves into neat columns.

Level Up Achieved – Lv. 49 → Lv. 51
Unassigned Attribute Points: 30

He stared at the total for a long moment. He hadn't bothered to spend any points since before the forest. Not because he hadn't needed to—but because the constant chaos hadn't given him a chance.

Now, though, after what had happened out there… after feeling his core crack under the strain, the choice was obvious.

He navigated to his attributes and rested his thumb on Vitality. The faint hum of aether pulsed beneath his skin as the points shifted.

Vitality +15

Warmth spread through him immediately, steady, grounded, the kind that made his heartbeat feel just a little stronger, his breathing a little deeper.

The remaining half he pushed into Spirit, the stat tied to his affinity, control, and depth of aether reserve.

Spirit +15

The system pulsed once, faint and approving.

He could already feel the difference—slight, but real. The threads of aether that had been restless all day settled fractionally, like a room full of whispering voices growing quiet.

He scrolled further down.

Name

: Thorne

Level

:

49 → 51

Race

: Human

Age

: 19

Special Trait

:

Aetherbound

→

Aetherveil Ascendant

[Elder Race]

Veilbreaker

3/5

Lunar Champion

2/5

Eclipsed Core

Health Points

: 1115/1115

Aether

: 570/570

Stamina

: 920/920

Core Attributes

Strength

: 78

Agility

: 96

Dexterity

: 83

Endurance

: 92

Vitality

: 115

Spirit

:

232

Wisdom

: 62

Intelligence

: 57

Special Abilities

Veil Sense

Lunar Regeneration

Silverlight Strikes

Aether Binding

Arcane Harvest

Ascendant's Touch

A small, tired smile ghosted over his face. "Not bad for almost dying," he muttered.

The glow of the interface dimmed as he closed it. His limbs still ached, his veins still flickered with pale light under the skin, but seeing those numbers, those tangible signs of progress, brought a strange comfort.

Now more than ever, Vitality and Spirit would keep him alive.

He leaned back, closing his eyes for a moment, feeling the faint hum of power settle into rhythm with his heartbeat.

Marian's words echoed in his head: stay quiet, stay invisible.

He tried. He really did.

But when night fell, the stillness only made his thoughts louder.

Brennak's network still ran in the shadows of Evermist. Humus was waiting. Fen needed watching. And the longer he stayed idle, the more time the wrong people had to make moves he couldn't see.

So when the last lights dimmed, Thorne rose.

He dressed in silence, every motion deliberate. His armor was light and dark-toned, designed to absorb what little illumination came from the enchanted lanterns outside. The nullite daggers slid into the hidden sheaths inside his boots, his ashthorn wand strapped to his thigh.

He tied back his hair, exhaled once, and let the familiar calm of focus settle over him.

Then he activated his evolved stealth skill.

The world dimmed. Sounds stretched thin and distant. His shadow blurred at the edges until it no longer belonged entirely to him.

He slipped out through the narrow corridor leading to the courtyard, his footsteps silent on the stone. The night air bit cool against his skin, carrying the faint scent of ward-oil and blooming aether roses.

Three steps from the outer gate, something tugged at his Veil Sense.

A dead flower lay in a small patch of soil beside the walkway, brown, brittle, its stem cracked. It should have been nothing more than a piece of forgotten greenery, but the aether around it hummed wrong.

He froze.

To his perception, it shone faintly, faint motes spiraling through its veins, far too dense for something lifeless. The whisper of the aether brushed against his mind like static.

Trap. Trap. Trap.

Thorne's eyes narrowed. "Clever," he murmured.

He shifted his weight and slid sideways, moving just outside the flower's radius. The moment he passed, the dried bloom twitched, then flared to life, unfolding in a sudden bloom of violet petals.

The surge of aether burst outward like a signal flare.

Thorne cursed under his breath, too late.

"I knew it!"

Elias's voice rang from behind the statue at the edge of the courtyard.

Thorne flinched so hard his stealth flickered, the shimmer around his body rippling out of sync for a heartbeat.

Thorne sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "You trapped me with a flower?"

Elias grinned. "Worked, didn't it? I noticed how your magic reacts to disturbances. A little alchemy, a little bait, and boom, caught the shadow in his natural habitat."

Thorne groaned. "You really have too much free time."

"Free time, instincts, genius, it's a fine line."

The elf's grin didn't fade, and Thorne's stealth spell unraveled fully with a reluctant shimmer. He let out a long exhale and straightened. "You realize I could have just stepped over it and left."

"Yeah," Elias said, stepping closer, "but you didn't."

Thorne's lips twitched despite himself. "Point taken. Do you ever sleep?"

"Not when my best friend is sneaking off into the night like a suspicious shadow with trust issues."

"I'm not suspicious," Thorne muttered. "And I do have trust issues."

Elias crossed his arms. "So where are we going this time, oh mysterious beacon of doom? Because I'm coming with you."

Thorne sighed. "You are absolutely not coming!"

But Elias was already grinning that infuriating grin, the indigo flame of the statue flickering above him as if in silent amusement.

And Thorne had the sudden, sinking feeling that arguing was going to be pointless.